


Nobody Has Time for Roller Derby

by sevenimpossiblethings



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, High School, POV Michelle, everybody's bi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-25 14:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12037440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenimpossiblethings/pseuds/sevenimpossiblethings
Summary: Michelle conquers the lunch table but is invited to movie night.As it turns out, being friends with Peter Parker comes with a comprehensive benefits package: sci-fi marathons, middle-of-the-night communication, a (woefully incomplete) sex talk from Tony Stark, and a lot of dumb, fuzzy feelings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you had told me a year and a half ago that the first fic I'd write for Marvel would not be Tony Stark / somebody, I would not have believed you. Alas. And—hello.

In the second week of October, when Michelle walks up to her lunch table—and it's definitely hers, the boys are just squatters and she's their benevolent overlord—she stands at the seat directly across from Peter, not three seats away like usual.

"Okay," she says. "Here's how this is going to go. The first key to maintaining a secret in the digital age is to have a goddam reporter on your side."

She sticks out her hand.

“I don’t have a secret,” says Peter, way too high and way too fast.

Exactly like somebody who has a secret.

But he also shakes her hand, on automatic, because he’s one of those polite boys somebody raised right. (She knows he lives with his aunt, and she might have a totally-not-embarrassing, stalker-level knowledge of his school-related schedule, but she’s not _actually_ a stalker. Personal life is personal life. Take that, _TMZ._ ).

She blows her hair out of her face as she sits down. “Please, Peter. You and Ned are the least subtle people on the planet. But that’s okay. Because I’m here now.”

Peter and Ned are doing some frantic non-verbal communication that Michelle deigns to ignore. Peter’s puppy eyes, somehow, become even wider. _How_.

Ned frowns at Peter, then at Michelle. “But, dude, you’re not a reporter.”

“I’m devastated you guys haven’t been reading my blog. I might cry,” Michelle says, deadpan.

Peter and Ned exchange _more panicked glances_.

“I’m kidding,” she says. “But you might want to start.”

“So you… are a reporter,” says Ned.

“I don’t kid about investigative journalism,” says Michelle.

“But we go to a _science_ school,” says Ned.

“I have many interests,” she says. Like, she’s the head of _Academic Decathlon_ now, not Science Olympiad. “Plus, science journalism is where it’s at. Flint? Keystone Pipeline? Climate change?”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with me? Not that everything has to be about me. Not that, um, the Keystone Pipeline _doesn’t_ affect me, as a, a citizen of this country and a member of the human race, although, obviously, not as much as the people who live around it—” 

Michelle lets Peter babble for a while. 

What? 

It’s cute. Earnest white boy cute, but options are limited. 

“—but here, um, specifically in regards to why you’re telling _me_ this—” 

“ _Dude_ ,” Ned hisses. “What happened to ‘I don’t have a secret’?” 

Michelle raises her eyebrows. 

“Yeah, okay,” says Ned. 

Peter buries his head in his hands. 

“I’m not going to ask you if you want my help or not,” she says. “You need it.” 

“Okay,” says Peter, looking up again.

Seriously, his eyes are _unfair_. He’s like Bambi, if Bambi beat up assholes every day after school, under the guise of a vague “Stark internship” that Michelle does not think meets Labor Department requirements. 

How does someone this hopeless become a superhero?

(Spider bite. That, she knows.)

“You need a distraction and disinformation campaign to direct people away from noticing how you, Peter Parker, super magically know things only—” She lets her significant glance fill in for the name “—knows, and vice-versa. And you seriously need to work on this location stuff.”

“Location stuff?” Peter asks.

“Friendly _neighborhood_ guy shows up in D.C.?” 

Peter thunks his head against the table. The movement gives Michelle a good look at the top of his head, which is covered, as she well knows, with swoopy brown hair. It looks… tuggable. But his tuggable hair leads down to the curve of his neck, to his shoulders that Michelle totally hasn’t noticed are unfairly muscled for a fifteen-year-old _Decathlon star_ —and his muscles are tight. Tension, stress. Probably a smidge of PTSD.

Michelle gets nightmares about that day in DC, and she was on the freaking ground. On the bus afterward, she’d thought, _see, this is what happens when you go up in places white people pretend they didn’t have slaves build to honor slave owners._

But they did, and they survived, because Peter Parker is a nerd and a puppy dog-eyed disaster of a Decathlon star, but he’s also… somebody that someone raised right. And people raised right don’t let other people die when there’s a delusional optimist’s chance in hell of saving them. 

“Also, when the press turns against you, you’re going to need me,” Michelle says. 

“You’re going to turn against me?” Peter asks. 

“Do I look like the press?” 

Peter actually squints at her, like that was not a rhetorical question. “No?” 

“Point for Team Parker,” says Michelle. “I have a ko-fi. It pays for my tea.” 

And sometimes second-hand books, because libraries don’t like you underlining or something, and some things demand to be underlined. 

“So… what happens now?” Ned asks, then adds, as if she doesn’t know this already, “I’m his guy in the chair! I get to know these things.” 

“I work my magic,” she says. “And Peter stays anonymous.” 

“Not _actual_ magic,” says Peter. “Actual magic makes me kinda nervous.” 

“ _Wingardium leviosa_ ,” Michelle says. She points a pencil at Ned’s sandwich for effect. 

Nothing happens, obviously, but both boys stare at the sandwich with concern, which is hilarious. Nerds.

 

“So, this campaign, do you need anything from me?” Peter asks on this three hundred and seventeenth sit-up. 

So Michelle’s counting. Whatever. 

“No. I just thought you needed to know, even though you weren’t exactly losing sleep over the issue,” she says. 

He should have been, really, except he should not have been, because she’s pretty sure he’s losing a lot of sleep over other things. Like, lab reports for chem he doesn’t start until late because he’s out helping old people cross the street. And the state of the world and whether he’s a good enough hero and whether he should join the Avengers and decidedly not the study sheets she hands out at Decathlon practice. 

“I was,” Ned offers. “Well, I did once, because I was thinking about the whole guy-in-the-chair thing.” 

He’s technically got his hands on Peter’s shoes, but Michelle would bet her entire book collection that Peter has no need of the counterweight, either for his first sit-up or his three hundred and twentieth. 

He still hasn’t broken a sweat. He’s not even breathing hard. Jesus Christ. 

“Okay,” says Peter, to her, not Ned. “Are you sure?”

His face is all pinched, like he could actually help her with tracking down the various accounts of people who want to know exactly who is wearing the Spider-Man costume and making sure their evidence is flawed and conclusions, if not laughable, are completely in the wrong direction. Ideally, she’ll steer them toward a new obsession. An actually made-up conspiracy, maybe, or something about random other superheroes she doesn’t care about. And then _their_ MJs, if they have one, can clean up whatever mess that stirs up.

She considers joking—telling Peter actually, yes, getting her into Stark’s servers would be helpful, thanks—but their gym teacher is approaching, frowning down at Peter like his three hundred and twenty-seventh flawless sit-up is a squashed bug on his windshield. (Mentally, Michelle presses the Decathlon judges' buzzer. _Wrong answer_.) 

The teacher frowns at Ned, then at Michelle. She raises her eyebrows. They’ve mostly come to an arrangement, so he merely points at her and says, “Jones. You ever thought about roller derby? That seems like the kind of thing a girl like you would be into.” 

“Because I’m bi?” 

“Um,” says Peter, pausing his sit-ups. He’s very still, the kind of still you go when you’re about to stand up and throw yourself in front of somebody. 

“Uh,” says Ned. His eyes dart between Michelle, Peter, and their teacher, like he can’t decide who’s most likely to combust. 

“Think about it,” their teacher says. He’s already walking away when he points at Ned. “You, too, Leech!” 

“Do I look like I have time for roller derby?” Michelle says. 

“Do _I_ look like I have time for roller derby?” Ned wonders. 

From the other side of the gym, the teacher blows on his whistle. Watch-Peter-do-sit-ups hour is over.

“Let’s go,” Michelle says, standing up. Before they split up—locker rooms are still divided by binary ideas about gender—she adds, “You should make Stark write you a note. Independent study gym class. You could practice for Decathlon this period instead.” 

Given how the gym class is run, he could be studying anyway, but Peter’s the kind of weirdo who does what all teachers tell him to do. Even gym teachers. 

“I don’t know that he can do that. And I’m suppose to—” he drops his voice, then continues, in a very loud whisper, “—stay low, you know? Blend in.” 

The three of them are hovering by the locker room doors now, like one of those awful, co-dependent groups Michelle has never been a part of. 

“Three hundred and twenty-nine sits up,” she says, by way of response.

“What?” says Peter. 

“That’s what you call ‘blending in.’ Later.” She slips through the locker room door before either one of them can think to call her on the fact that, okay, yeah, she was counting. What else is she supposed to do in gym class? Watching Peter do perfect sit-ups _is_ what there is to do. 

 

“Take-out and SG-1 tonight, right?” Ned says at lunch on Friday.

Michelle doesn’t look up from her book. It’s actually not even that good of a book, but every once in a while her boys need a little space. 

“I thought we were doing Atlantis this week?” Peter says. 

“No, dude, we definitely decided on SG-1. On Tuesday? Remember?” says Ned. 

Peter winces. 

“You don’t remember,” says Ned. “Fine. We’re still doing SG-1.” 

“That’s cool,” says Peter. He coughs. “So, um, MJ, do you want to come?” 

Michelle is cool with whipping their lunch table and Decathlon team into shape. Plus keeping Peter’s anonymity in tact. It’s not a position she got into for potential sci-fi marathon benefits.

“Do I want to spend my Friday night watching _Stargate_ with you two?” She doesn’t look up from her book, even though, really, she’s ready to dump it in the nearest recycling bin. 

“If you want to? You’ve probably got, like… a protest to go to, but—you’re invited. Ned usually just comes home with me, but you could come by later? If you wanted to? My aunt gets us take-out,” says Peter. 

“One of the waiters at the Thai place has a _huge_ crush on May,” Ned says, in the voice of someone dispensing holy wisdom. 

“Yeah, okay,” says Michelle. 

“Really?” says Peter.

She looks up. “Am I invited or not?” 

“You’re invited!” 

“Okay, then.” The bell rings. “Text me your address. I’ll see you nerds later.” 

  


“I’m going to a friend’s place tonight,” Michelle says, as casually as she can, a very calculated twelve minutes after getting home. 

“You don’t have friends,” says Susie, her younger sister, who’s eating a snack at the kitchen table. She’s not saying it to be mean. Not too long ago, it would have been factually correct. 

“A party?” their mom asks. She thinks parties are places where you can make friends, which is why she was willing to drive Michelle to Flash’s last month. 

Michelle has this idea that there is a different kind of party, one where people like her sit around eating peanut butter toast and mostly doing their own thing but occasionally multi-tasking in order to bitch about something. Flash’s was not that kind of party. 

“No,” says Michelle. “Just hanging out. They want to watch some dumb sci-fi show.” 

“ _Oh_ ,” her mom says. 

Michelle knows what that _oh_ means: actual friends, not just a random party anybody could walk into.

She fills up a mug with water and sticks it in the microwave instead of saying anything. Any other day, she’d wait for the water to boil in the kettle on the stove, but today, speed is of the essence.

“But you want to go,” her mom continues. 

Michelle shrugs. “It’s not far, and I can take the bus.”

“Can I know their names?”

Her cover is totally blown. 

“Ned,” she says. “And Peter.” 

She can feel her traitorous mouth twisting into a smile as she says his name. 

“Peter, huh,” says her mom. 

“You _like_ him,” Susie crows. 

“Boys are dumb. Don’t like them,” Michelle advises. 

“Peter’s dumb?” Her mom crosses her arms. 

“He has straight As.” 

Even though he sometimes does dumb things like skip quizzes so he can go save the world. Or at least, like, Queens. 

“I see,” says her mom. 

“So…” says Michelle. She turns away, pulling out the other accoutrements necessary for tea: a sachet, a spoon. 

“Have fun,” her mom says. She crosses the room to kiss Michelle on the cheek, then heads back into her bedroom-slash-office. Work hours do not actually end at 3pm. 

“Is Ned really going to be there?” Susie asks. 

“Yeah,” she says.

“You could kiss Peter anyway,” Susie says, her mouth full of yogurt.

“Nobody’s kissing anybody.”

“ _That’s_ dumb.” Susie attempts to throw her mostly-empty yogurt cup into the trashcan and misses spectacularly. Leftover streaks of yogurt spit onto the kitchen floor.

“I’m out,” says Michelle. She grabs her tea in one hand, two books in the other, and heads for her bedroom. 

She tells herself it’s not unforgivably dumb to change her shirt before she goes to Peter’s. Her current shirt smells like school. 

Three hours later, she’s been hugged by Peter’s aunt ("call me May") and eaten a large amount of fried rice. Peter’s aunt has since retreated to her bedroom, leaving the living room clear for them. Michelle has the distinct impression that Ned and Peter don’t normally hang out in the living room. It seems more than possible that Peter was given a “no girls in your bedroom” policy, which sucks, because it gets in the way of her “insert myself into their friendship without disrupting anything*” strategy. *Exceptions: their reading material, their thoughts on the Washington Monument, and Peter’s terrible sense of self-preservation. 

_You don’t have to worry about me_ , she thinks at Peter’s aunt. Even though kissing Peter in his bedroom is high on her list of “dumb things to think about while teachers are being even dumber.” 

They settle into a worn couch: Michelle, then Peter, then Ned. When Peter leans forward to pick the remote up from the coffee table, his shirt rides up, exposing a strip of skin above his waistband. 

Ned, glancing over at her, catches her looking. She lifts her chin and stares back at him.

“MJ, have you seen any of it? Should we start with the pilot?” Peter looks at her over his shoulder, still leaning forward.

“Just fill me in as we go along,” Michelle says.

When Peter turns back toward the TV, she looks at Ned, who does a sigh-shrug-nod combination. 

Whatever. It’s not like she needs Ned’s approval. Peter’s probably not over Liz. 

While Peter navigates to the right episode, she asks, “Why aren’t you out there being Spider-Man tonight?” 

Peter slumps back into the couch cushions. “Uh, May and Mr. Stark kind of had a talk, and I’m only allowed four nights a week now. Or afternoons, but not both.” 

“So Tony Stark is who I have to thank for your Decathlon attendance,” Michelle says. 

“And May,” says Ned, loyally. 

“I’ve been thinking about rejoining robotics,” says Peter. 

He should, because while a recommendation letter from Tony Stark will seriously beef up his college applications, it won’t help him _actually succeed_ in college. 

Michelle does the scheduling calculations. “You’d still only be able to make one session a week.” Assuming he ever wants to sleep and do his homework, which are not actually things she thinks Peter takes into account. 

“I know,” says Peter. “But they thought—and I thought—I should do high school. Like, really do high school, with clubs and everything.” 

“Tony Stark said that?” Michelle says. 

“Not exactly like that? But that was, uh, the meaning,” says Peter. 

“Welcome back to high school, then,” she says. “Nerd.” 

He smiles at her, open and earnest, and Michelle thinks, _hold onto that feeling and maybe you’ll sleep tonight_. 

Ned grabs the remote, which is dangling loosely in Peter’s hand, and presses play. 

She thinks about shifting a little closer to Peter on the couch. Tipping her head onto his shoulder, like she had a right to it. He’d let her, she thinks. Peter’s a tactile person, easygoing, generous. He wouldn’t think anything of it, except that she’s tired and his shoulder is convenient. 

She doesn’t shift toward him. 

By the end of the fourth episode, though, she’s curled up into her corner of the couch, eyelids drooping. 

“May can drive you home,” Peter offers. 

“Oh, no,” says Michelle. She shakes herself upright and pushes hair out of her eyes. “I can take the bus.”

Peter frowns. “But it’s dark? She won’t mind.” 

Michelle can take care of herself, but she’s also not stupid. If the circumstances are right enough—wrong enough—and you’re a fifteen-year-old girl out alone at night, without spy training or superpowers, whatever self-defense lessons or kickboxing classes you’ve taken aren’t going to be enough. And, as they’ve established, she does not do roller derby… so when a ride is offered…

“Fine,” she says, and then, because somebody has at least tried to raise her right, adds, “Thank you.”

In the most disproportionate response in recent history, Peter backflips off the couch on the way to his aunt’s room. Michelle does not whistle, but she raises her eyebrows.

“He’s just too lazy to walk around it,” says Ned. 

“Okay,” says Michelle. 

She isn’t fooled for a second. Ned totally thinks Peter’s a badass. 

“So,” says Ned. 

“No,” says Michelle. 

“Okay,” he agrees. 

Peter and May emerge; Peter insists on riding with them, while Ned opts to stay behind and work on some Lego model. 

“No porn!” May calls, as the three of them are heading out the door. 

Ned flushes. It’s pretty hilarious. 

Peter also insists on sitting in the backseat with her, watching her with wide eyes as she tries to politely answer round two of “polite questions from May.” 

“And Peter’s told me you’re a journalist,” May says, throwing a smile into the rearview mirror as she makes a left turn. 

Michelle looks at Peter, who turns his hands palms-up. 

_Sorry_? he mouths. 

“Yeah,” she says. “Corporate greed. Unethical shit. I put up a lot of drawings, too.” 

“Ooh, like political cartoons?” May says. 

“Sure. I draw people in crisis,” Michelle says.

Next to her, Peter smirks. 

“There’s not exactly a shortage,” Michelle adds.

May laughs. “That is… true.”

When they reach Michelle’s apartment building, Peter follows her out of the car. Michelle assumes he’s just going to slip into the front seat, but he walks her to the door.

She raises her eyebrows at him while she gets out her key. She’s not sure he can see her skeptical expression—the angle of the streetlights isn’t right—but she likes to think he knows it’s there anyway.

Peter bounces on the balls of his feet. “Thanks for coming tonight.”

“Yeah,” she says.

“And um, sorry about all of Aunt May’s questions.” He ducks his head.

“Uh, why?”

“It’s just, there’s really only, you know, Ned, and she’s kind of protective, even though she can’t really be, because…”

“Right,” says Michelle.

“So. Sorry about the interrogation.”

“Small talk with your chill aunt is not an interrogation,” Michelle says.

Peter winces and shakes his head. "Thanks and sorry anyway?"

“You’re so _dumb_.” Michelle pushes him with one hand. He doesn’t move at first, obviously, because he’s stronger than any high school sophomore has the right to be, but an instant later he rocks back obligingly.

God, why is he _like_ this.

He doesn’t say anything, just looks back at her. 

“You think my mom does a lot of interrogations on my behalf?” 

“Do I need to come up?” 

It’s not a line or anything. It’s a genuine offer, like he wants to give her mom the chance to ask him questions about his extracurriculars. On second thought, maybe she should make him come up. 

“ _No,_ ” she says. “My sister’s probably asleep.” 

“Oh,” he says. 

“Your aunt’s waiting,” says Michelle, like she’s impatient to get him off of the stoop. Like there’s not a part of her brain playing through the rom-com scene where he kisses her. _She_ could kiss _him_ , except she thinks he’s still hurting over Liz, and she doesn’t have so many friends that she can throw one away over a dumb thing like a crush. Not one: both. Ned goes where Peter goes.

“Right,” says Peter. He glances back at the car. “So I’ll see you on Monday?” 

“You know it,” says Michelle. “Stay out of trouble, loser.” 

“You know it,” Peter echoes.

There’s a hesitation, like he’s deciding whether to try out his and Ned’s ridiculous handshake with her, but in the end he just gives her a little wave. “Goodnight,” he says.

She doesn’t deign to reply, but she does notice that Peter waits to get in the car until after she’s stepped inside.

 

There’s another Friday movie night. Peter stays in the middle. Michelle stays tucked into her side of the couch, although she elbows Peter, or bumps his knee with hers, when something funny happens onscreen. May drives her home again; Peter walks her to the door. They still don’t have a special handshake, although she has his and Ned’s memorized. She would rock at Polyjuice Potion shit. Just saying. 

The next Friday, he elbows her first, gently. Their legs are stretched out on the coffee table. She elbows him back, harder, then lifts her legs up, pivoting just enough to drop them on top of Peter’s shins. 

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. His eyes flick to hers. There’s a small half-smile on his face. They both look back at the screen, where people are being stupid, but honestly, who is she to talk? There’s a dumb, fluttery feeling in her stomach. It’s not like they’re holding hands. He’s not even looking at her. 

She’s walking from the library on Saturday when a black car pulls up next to her, and Tony Stark hops out. Suit, check. Stubble, check. 

“Hello,” he says. 

To her. 

“Uh, hi?” She stops walking.

“I thought about doing this after school one day, but.” Stark shrugs, sticks his hands into his pockets. “Too creepy. Plus, _school_. All those high schoolers.” He gives an exaggerated shudder.

It’s beyond weird, to have someone you see on TV and from the cover of magazines at the corner store, talking to you like they already know you, like they’re picking up on a conversation you’ve already started.

 _Peter, come get your superhero mentor_ , she thinks.

“I’m in high school. So’s Peter,” says Michelle. She assumes he’s here about Peter. 

Stark grimaces. “I didn’t think this through. Car?” He waves a hand toward the door to the backseat. 

“Are you asking me to get in your car? What’s my family’s safe code?” Michelle says. 

“I don’t know, your birth year plus your sister’s birth year,” Stark says. 

Michelle ignores the fact that he knows she has a sister. 

“Not a code to a safe, dude. A safe code. Like, the word my mom is supposed to tell an adult I’m supposed to trust, so I know it’s safe to get in their car.” Michelle puts a hand on her hip.

The safe code is _pumpkin_. Michelle did not have a say in this.

“I’m Tony Stark,” says Tony Stark. “I’m very safe.” 

“That is verifiably untrue,” says Michelle. 

“Car. Please,” says Stark. He even opens the door for her. 

She gets in, but she makes a point of texting Peter. 

_Your crazy fairy godfather kidnapped me, FYI._

“That’s a slur, you know,” says Stark, conversationally and not at all ashamed to admit he read her text. 

Whatever. It wasn’t like she was trying to hide it. 

“You gave him that suit. There are no evil stepsisters or anything, but I’m pretty sure that makes you his fairy godmother. I changed the gender for you,” says Michelle. 

“Anyway,” says Stark. “I thought we should have a chat about your online activities. 

“Yeah, those Tumblr memes,” says Michelle. “Real national security threat.” 

In her hand, her phone buzzes. She glances down at it. 

_Peter: ?!?!?!?!_

“I hate teenagers,” says Stark, to the closed privacy window. 

“You’re the one who stalked me.” She slumps back into the interior. It’s not leather, she doesn’t think, but it feels expensive all the same. What would she know about it? 

Two buzzes this time, in short succession. 

_Peter: You mean Tony? Stark?_

_Peter: Are you okay??? Where are you???_

“No, the other blog. And all those Twitters you’ve got running around, for Peter,” says Stark.

Michelle’s surprised that he noticed. She’s not surprised that he would have _access_ to that kind of information, that he has some sort of program monitoring that, but she’s surprised that he’s actively aware of it. 

“It’s good stuff. Smart,” says Stark. 

“Well, Peter’s really dumb,” says Michelle. 

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. 

_Peter: MJ_

_Peter: I’m going to come find you_

_Peter: That sounded less creepy in my head. Sorry. (I’m still coming. You might be in trouble.)_

“I can take over,” Stark says.

“I don’t think so,” says Michelle. “Because it won’t be you, and whoever you assign this to won’t actually know Peter, or Queens, so they’ll do a shitty job of it. And I know Peter and Queens, so I won’t. And if it _is_ you, you’ll overdo and blow his cover anyway.” 

“Rude.” Stark points a finger at her. “But not necessarily incorrect.” 

“Great. Can I go? I’ve got homework to do, superhero identities to keep in tact…” 

Buzz. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake, would you text him back?” 

Michelle types, _Casual weekend chat with Iron Man. WTF, Peter._ After a second, she adds, _Stay at robotics_. 

He probably won’t, but there’s a chance that he will. 

“Peter’s a good kid,” Stark says, his tone abrupt. 

“I don’t go around creating fake Twitter accounts to protect just anybody,” Michelle says. 

Like, if Flash were a secret superhero—which he wouldn’t be, nobody with that kind of ego could keep their superhero status a secret—she’d let Twitter have him. Sorry not sorry. 

Stark fidgets. “Your parent, uh, gave you the talk?” 

“The don’t get into cars with strange men talk? We went over that already.” 

“The boy talk. Or girl talk! This is a safe space,” he says. 

Michelle bursts out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she manages. “Your _face_.” 

Stark scowls. “I’m just saying, Happy is not equipped to deal with teenage superheroes’ broken hearts.” 

“Oh, _Happy_ isn’t,” says Michelle. 

“That is not part of his job description.” 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure your AI dealt with the Liz fallout. Nice going.”

“My AI is—” Stark squawks, then cuts himself off. “You know what, never mind. I don’t want to know.” 

“That makes two of us. I’m glad we can agree on something,” Michelle says.

“I wasn’t talking about… Lisa, did you say?”

“Liz.”

“Liz,” he repeats. “Anyway. Consent! Condoms! Okay, that’s all I’ve got, get out of here.”

Michelle stares at him. “Did you just… give me the sex talk? Because that was the worst sex talk I’ve ever had. That was actually worse than the one we got in middle school gym.” 

“I feel like it covers the basics,” he says. 

“Sure. Consent, condoms. We’re done here?” 

“Very done,” Stark agrees. 

“Cool. Nice chat.” 

She opens the door, which has the inadvertent effect of knocking Peter backwards several paces. 

“Hey, kid,” calls Stark from inside the car. 

“Hi, Peter,” says Michelle, getting out.

“Hi,” says Peter. It’s a general greeting. “So… I see you’ve been introduced?”

“No, not really,” says Michelle. “There wasn’t even a handshake involved. I’m not sure he knows my name.”

“MJ,” says Stark promptly.

Michelle turns, ducking a little so she can peer inside the car. It’s nearly November, and the wind is brisk, blowing her hair into her face and pulling at her jacket. She should have negotiated for a ride home. Still: “We’re not friends.”

“I feel like we had a very friendly conversation just now,” says Tony. 

“She means you have to call her Michelle,” says Peter. 

“That’s the rule, is it?” says Tony. He’s still inside the car, which has the effect of making the entire conversation more ridiculous than it already is. 

“It’s an invite-only club,” says Michelle. 

“I am very familiar with those,” says Tony. He shoos Michelle further away, out of the radius of the door. “Okay, my capacity for Queens has officially been reached, stay out of trouble, remember what I told you.” He fixes Michelle with a look, then shares a similar one with Peter, before pulling the car door shut. 

Michelle and Peter stand on the sidewalk. 

Peter runs a hand through his hair. His jacket is unzipped, revealing a light gray t-shirt with the words “I have potential” across the chest, with a graphic of a ball on top of a slope below the text. What a _nerd_. His cheeks are flushed, probably from running here from robotics, though, not from the cold. 

“Sorry about Mr. Stark,” he says, but kind of rote, in a rush. The apology is followed by, “He’s so cool, isn’t he?” 

“He stalked me here to pester me about my blog and give me the sex talk,” says Michelle. 

“Oh, no,” says Peter. “I’m sorry. Are you, um… was it…” 

“Emotionally scarring?” She waits for Peter’s eyes to widen. “Nah.” 

It was, a little. Peter doesn’t need to know. 

“Okay. Okay, um, I can tell him, not to stalk you, in the future? I can’t guarantee he won’t. He’s…” 

“Tony Stark,” Michelle supplies. “I follow him on Twitter. Some of my Twitter accounts, anyway. He could DM me. Or he could hack your phone and get my number from you.” 

They don’t text a lot—mostly “I’m on my way” and “Decathlon in five. Be there” from her, and “I’m coming!!” and “Moodle’s down, what’s the math homework??” from him. He’s still always near the top of her most recent texts. 

“Can I, um, can I make it up to you?” Peter asks. 

“The stalky sex talk?” 

Peter winces when she says “sex.” It’s hilarious. “Yeah,” he says. 

“Only if you make it up to me somewhere indoors,” she says, turning on her heel. He follows. “I’m getting cold.” 

Two blocks later, when she pushes into an acceptable coffee shop slash tearoom (it’s awful, those are two separate things, people), Peter’s still with her. 

“I’ll buy you tea?” Peter tries. 

Michelle cocks her head. This is not a date. This is Peter trying to make up for Tony Stark butting into her Saturday afternoon. “Only if you submit an expense report.” 

“What?”

“This is a work-related expense,” she calls over her shoulder, as she makes her way further inside, toward an empty table in a corner. She sets her stack of books on the table, then shakes out her fingers. 

“You want me to submit an expense report to—” his voice drops. “Tony Stark?” 

“For my tea. Yeah,” she says. “I’ll even make it for you. You just have to email to him.” 

She raises her eyebrows, challenging, and lets a smile spread across her face. Peter smiles back. 

“Okay,” he says. 

Five minutes later, Peter’s sitting across from her, drinking coffee-flavored milk and sugar. She has her chem textbook open, but Peter’s staring blankly at the sneakers of the person next to them. 

“You’re not at robotics,” Michelle says. 

“Hm? No. It was basically over. It would have been basically over by the time I got back,” says Peter. 

“We wouldn’t want to lure them into a false sense of your dependability.” Michelle highlights a definition, then looks across at Peter. 

“I don’t want to be not dependable,” he says. His eyebrows are creased together 

“It’s hard for two people sharing one body to both be dependable,” says Michelle. 

Peter nods. He frowns at her a little, opens his mouth, closes it. He takes a gulp of his coffee. 

“You didn’t bring any homework with you to robotics,” Michelle says.

It’s not like they’re going to _talk_. 

“I didn’t expect…” Peter says. 

Tony Stark. Tea/coffee. 

“You can go. You’ve still got one afternoon shift this week.” Michelle doesn’t look up from her chem book. It doesn’t matter if she does the reading while Peter’s here or not. 

“I think I’ll save that for tomorrow,” says Peter, in a quiet voice. 

“Okay,” says Michelle. She looks up. Peter’s fiddling with the mug, an ironic “I <3 NYC" one.

Sighing, she shoves the chem book toward him and digs out her school copy of _The Bluest Eye_. 

“Thanks,” says Peter. 

She tosses a highlighter at him; he catches it easily. She rolls her eyes. “Nerd.” 

Peter winks at her before flipping back to the start of the chapter. 

 

Peter doesn’t email Stark. Instead, Peter gives her Stark’s email address—his real, private one—which is frankly the dumbest thing he’s done yet. 

Or maybe Michelle’s the dumb one, because all she does is email Stark the expense report.

She sends the email at 9:47 p.m. on Sunday. On Monday morning, she wakes up to a reply. Specifically, at 3:16 a.m., Tony Stark wrote, “I am tempted to reward you for this, even though dating is not a superhero-related expense. But no.” 

Michelle frowns down at her phone. It’s 6:26 a.m., which is too early to be dealing with Tony Stark, much less Tony Stark _and_ his insomnia _and_ his insomniac-born delusions. She hits “reply.”

 

_Emotional hardship of that conversation +_  
  
_ Value of my time _  
  
__ _1 cup of tea_

_Frankly, you’re getting off easy._

_Sincerely,_

_Michelle Jones_

 

Michelle doesn’t hear back from Stark, so she assumes he’s done remembering the fact of her existence and has moved on to fixing the fuck-up that is privatized world peace. That’s her hope. 

Except two days later, Peter runs up to her before first period, pushing something into her hand. 

“Good morning,” she says. She turns away from her locker to face him properly.

“Hi,” he says. 

She looks down. The object in question is a debit card, belonging to one Peter Parker, expiration date October 2020. God, someone’s optimistic. 

It’s one of those personalized debit cards. Said optimistic someone also took it upon themselves to put a picture of Iron Man on this one. 

“Tony set this up for me,” Peter whispers. “For _business expenses_.” 

“A company debit card. You’re moving up,” says Michelle, shaking her head and closing her locker door. “Sucked into the cogs of capitalism so young.” 

“He put Iron Man on it!” 

“He has way too much time on his hands,” says Michelle. 

She knows this is not true. This is just what you get when you call something that is not a date a date. 

“Happy gave it to me this morning,” says Peter. “He told me he’ll be monitoring all account activity, and he’ll get a text every time it’s used. And I have to fill out expense reports.” 

“Stark’s just fucking with you there,” says Michelle. 

She starts walking toward her first class, which she does not share with Peter. Peter walks with her anyway. Whatever. It’s not like he’s going to be _late_.

“Yeah,” says Peter. 

“You’re going to fill out the reports anyway,” says Michelle. 

He nods.

“I’ll send you the template.”

 

In the murky space between Wednesday and Thursday—meaning, the hours between midnight and four a.m.—the chime of an incoming text startles her out of sleep.

_Peter: Math is evens + every other odd or ??_

Michelle thinks about ignoring the text. She thinks about texting him back, falling back to sleep, letting this be a momentary mathematical blip in her night.

But who is she kidding. It’s Peter.

She pulls her covers over her head and calls him. As soon as it’s ringing, she closes her eyes. She’s willing to call him at—a truly stupid time—but she’s going to do it with her eyes shut. 

Peter answers after one ring. “MJ? Are you okay?”

There’s a thump, like he’s toppled out of bed. Probably half into his suit already.

“You woke me up,” Michelle says, her voice low. Her mom and her sister are pretty deep sleepers, but it would be just like Susie to get out of bed to go to the bathroom tonight of all nights and overhear her. 

“What? Oh, the text,” says Peter. “But we don’t have math until last period today, I don’t need an answer, like, right now, I just thought I’d…” 

“Send it now, since you’re awake,” Michelle finishes for him. 

“Yeah.” Peter clears his throat. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you don’t silence your phone at night.” 

“I used to,” says Michelle. 

“What happened?” 

“You started picking fights with criminals,” she says. 

“Oh,” says Peter. 

“Yeah.” 

It’s getting stuffy beneath her blanket, so she lifts up a corner, letting cool air wash over her face. She’s never had a phone call with someone this late, or this early, before. It doesn’t feel like a dream—she’s never this tired in dreams and, anyway, if this were a dream, Peter would be in the room with her, not at the other end of the line—but still strangely out of time. A scene from a parallel universe, spliced here through the liminality of the night. 

“Hey, MJ,” says Peter, at the same time she says, “It’s odds and every other even.” 

“Oh,” says Peter. “The math homework. Thanks.” 

“Yeah,” she says. She rolls over onto her side. “Nice job today. With that mugging.” 

Stopping the mugging, she means. Two assailants—grown-up, broad, cocky—against three middle schoolers, walking home. Not a fair fight, until Peter arrived. 

“You saw that,” says Peter. 

“I see everything. Via Twitter,” says Michelle. 

“And I’m…” 

“Completely anonymous. Peter Parker remains a very ordinary nerd with an unexpectedly weird internship.” She thinks that’s a fair categorization of anything related to Tony Stark. “Spider-Man could be anyone.” 

Peter lets out a sigh, hard enough that it’s audible over the phone. “Thanks.” 

“Mm.” She lets the sound hang over the line between them for a moment. “You gonna sleep before school?” 

“I’ll try,” says Peter. “It’s. You know.” 

“I’m hanging up on you.” It’s something she has to say, or else she won’t. 

“Okay. Good night, MJ.” 

“Night, Peter.” 

She expects to be awake for a while after that, to agonize over every syllable spoken and heard, but she takes her own (unspoken) advice and falls asleep quickly. 

Peter’s at her locker before first period. He doesn’t say anything about the phone call, but he hands her a to-go cup of tea, which says enough. 


	2. Chapter 2

“We can cancel movie night, you know,” Michelle says on Friday. She’s in her usual spot on the couch, tucked under a blanket Peter unearthed from somewhere.

“No, no, it’s fine!” Peter insists. He hands a bowl of popcorn to Ned, then kneels down to adjust the coffee table for optimal footrest positioning. 

Behind his back, Michelle exchanges a look with Ned. 

Peter had been out all night, helping to evacuate residents when there was a gas leak in an apartment building and the firefighters were understaffed. He went to school after, even first period, although Michelle convinced him to take a catnap in gym class. 

At first, Peter protested, all “I can’t sleep in class!” But the bags under his eyes begged to differ. He looked even paler than usual, and his unstyled, uncombed hair drooped into his eyes. 

“It’s gym,” Michelle said. “Leech, do your thing.” 

“What?” 

Michelle rolled her eyes and got into sit-up position. Ned’s hands hovered over her gym shoes. 

“Hold, loser,” she said. “Some of us don’t have abs.” 

Ned pressed down. Michelle curled up. 

One sit-up. Done. 

She lowered herself to the ground, mostly eyeing the high ceiling, but also keeping watch for their teacher out of the corner of her eye. 

“Let me know when he’s looking,” she told Ned. “I’m only doing about ten of these.” 

“MJ?” Peter said, hesitant, like he had on the phone that night. 

“Take a nap, nerd,” she said. 

But forty or so minutes of shut-eye while surrounded by gossiping classmates is not enough to make up for an entire night’s sleepless exertion. 

“Spider-Man, school, SG-1,” Peter insists now, falling backwards into the middle of the couch.

He lands on top of a corner of her blanket, and she tugs it out from beneath him. She doesn’t look at him while she flips it over his thighs. 

“This is not a ‘superheroes can have it all’ LifeTime movie,” Michelle says. 

“Yeah, dude,” is Ned’s persuasive contribution. 

“Two episodes,” Peter says. “Then I’m kicking you out.” 

Michelle shrugs. The movement brings her shoulder in contact with Peter’s, and she leaves it there, pressed up against him. 

Fifteen minutes into the first episode, a weight lands on her shoulder. 

It’s Peter, fast asleep, his mouth half open. 

“That cannot be comfortable,” Michelle whispers at Ned. 

Ned, still looking at the screen, says, “Well, yeah, but space magic!” 

“Not that,” Michelle says. 

Ned glances over, takes in the scene: her, Peter, Peter’s cheek squashed against her shoulder, the light from the TV casting strange and shifting shadows over his face. 

“Eh,” he says. “He’s fine.” To his credit, though, he adds, “Are you fine? You can wake him up. Or shove him my way.” 

“I’m not waking him up,” Michelle says.

“Okay, then,” says Ned.

He turns back to the TV, so Michelle does, too. At the end of the first episode, Ned glances at her. Peter’s breaths are slow and even against her collarbone. His hair tickles her neck. She has never been so aware of how much muscle is packed into his body; now, at least half of it is leaning on her arm. 

“One more won’t kill him,” she says. 

Michelle spends most of the second episode debating how to wake him up. Gentle shove? Not so gentle poke? Either of those options by way of Ned, not her? But three minutes before the end, there’s a big explosion on screen, and Peter jerks awake. 

“Relax,” she says, carefully not looking at him, giving him space to find himself. 

“Yeah.” Beat. “Right,” Peter says, and slumps back, eyeing the TV. “Wait… didn’t we start with…” He frowns, turning his head toward Ned. Michelle can feel the precise moment of eureka, because Peter flinches and looks at her, eyes wide. “Oh my god. I fell asleep. On you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. You could have woken me up—you should have—I didn’t—” 

“Peter,” Michelle sighs. 

He shuts up. 

“I could have woken you up,” she says. “I didn’t.” 

Peter nods. 

 

When she lets herself think about it, about the possibility of it, she thinks about it happening at movie night. Thinks about Peter putting his arm around her. Thinks about putting her head onto his shoulder—revenge, or something.

It doesn’t happen at movie night. 

The day before Thanksgiving break, Peter walks her to first period. He doesn’t do it every morning, but more mornings than not. It’s the only three minutes of the day they’re likely to be together without Ned. 

Ahead of them, two upperclassman jock-types—yes, even science schools have them, Michelle should sue for false advertising—crash into each other in an epic-bro hug that requires two-thirds of the hallway space and results in all of their books tumbling to the floor, sliding across the slick tile at a speed that would be impressive if the idea of a thousand-page, hardcover chemistry book crashing into her ankles wasn’t so alarming. 

Peter takes her hand, tugging her out of the way of the tumult of books and every other abruptly detoured student. 

“Congratulations, you and Ned are not the most embarrassing people in this school,” Michelle says, as they weave through the throng, Peter’s fingers laced through hers. 

When they break out of the logjam of adolescent bodies and overstuffed backpacks and into a less crowded side hallway, Michelle doesn’t let go. 

Peter doesn’t either. 

It’s dumb. 

It’s really, really nice. 

At the classroom door, they stop, stepping to one side so other students can pass. Michelle’s heart is beating rabbit-quick. It’s not like there’s one Decathlon point between them and victory; it’s not like jaywalking or checking her phone to find a hundred new Twitter followers. It’s something else entirely.

“So…” says Peter.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” says Michelle. She lets go of his hand, and her own instantly feels cold and somehow incomplete. 

Peter stalls, not moving away. But one of them has to. 

“You’re going to be late,” says Michelle. 

She does not do PDA at school—or anywhere—she thinks, anyway—so she doesn’t try to kiss him or anything. Instead, she brushes her fingers along the back of his hand and pushes open the classroom door, her hand still tingling with the memory of his touch. 

At lunch, Peter tries to sit next to her, but she shakes her head and directs him to his usual spot across from her. 

“Better view,” she tells him. 

“What?” says Ned, sitting down next to Peter. 

“Nothing,” says Michelle. 

Nonsensically, she thinks about the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood: _the better to see you with. The better to eat you with._

Their gym teacher is miraculously absent that day, and the sub is hilariously unsure of her ability to “safely supervise their normal gym class routines,” so she declares the hour a study hall, although they have to stay in the gym, and they’ve all already changed. 

“Great,” says Michelle. “You missed Decathlon practice last week. We can use this time as a make-up session.” 

“I’m really sorry about that,” Peter says, as she leads them to the bleachers. “There was—” 

“—an emergency,” Michelle finishes. “It’s cool. But we’re going to do drills now.” She pulls a few study sheets from between the pages of the book she was planning on half-reading while Peter did sit-ups. 

She and Peter sit cross-legged on the bleachers, facing each other. Their knees are practically touching. Ned sits one row above them, probably on the lookout for Joey, his current crush. (It’s like a rainbow-tinted Wonderland: _we’re all queer here_ , Michelle thinks.) 

Michelle glances over the first page, then says, “Talk to me about DNA. Everything you’ve got, let’s go.” 

Peter’s halfway into his explanation of junk DNA when Michelle lets one hand cross the nearly non-existent no man’s land of space between her knee and Peter’s. Peter jumps when her hand lands on his leg, stumbling over his sentence, but she just raises her eyebrows at him until he continues. 

“I feel like I’m Harry in _Half-Blood Prince_ ,” Ned announces. 

Michelle and Peter look up at him. Peter’s hand slips over hers, which is now in some sort of Peter sandwich situation. 

“Because of white nationalists’ infiltration of our government?” Michelle asks. “I don’t think that means you get to be _Harry_.” 

“No, because he’s Ron,” Ned points at Peter, “and you’re Hermione.” He points at her. 

Michelle may have black!Hermione fanart on her bedroom walls. She may have made it herself. Whatever.

But she sees the point Ned is making.

“There will be no Cormac McLaggen,” she tells Ned.

“Okay,” says Ned. 

“Good,” says Peter. He smiles, and his thumb swipes over her knuckles. Her skin tingles. 

“Gross,” says Ned. 

“Kinda,” says Michelle, but she doesn’t look away from Peter as she says it. 

 

Thanksgiving weekend is, traditionally and unsurprisingly, a busy time for superheroes, so Michelle doesn’t expect to see much of Peter, recent handholding notwithstanding. 

She spends Thursday morning at an anti-Christopher Columbus demonstration with her mom and sister. 

“Families that protest together, stay together,” her mom says. 

“Hashtag blessed,” says Susie, taking a selfie of the three of them that will end up on their holiday cards. 

Peter calls her that night, while she’s on her third slice of chocolate walnut pie, reading the latest from Ta-Nehisi Coates at the kitchen table. 

“‘Sup,” she says. She cradles the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she removes herself, the book, and the pie to her bedroom. 

“Hey,” says Peter. “I saw you were at that protest this morning.” 

Michelle assumes Peter means Ned saw on her Twitter and told him. Peter doesn’t have a Twitter, and Michelle thinks, in this one case, the status quo is for the best.

“Where else would I be?” She sits down on her bed and takes another bite of pie. 

“There was an incident in Corona,” says Peter. 

“I saw,” says Michelle, also meaning via Twitter, albeit more directly. 

“I meant… I would have gone, if you wanted me to? Not that you need to want me there. But if you had, and if I hadn’t had this thing,” says Peter. 

_This thing_. Helping people. Saving their small corner of the world by way of webbing and backflips. A thing. 

Casual. 

“As Peter or as Spider-Man?” Michelle asks, referring to his would-be appearance at the protest. 

“Uh…” Peter hesitates. 

“This is not a trick question, and this is not sudden death, final elimination,” says Michelle. 

“Whichever you thought would be best?” Peter tries. “But if I went as Spider-Man, I probably couldn’t, like _go with you_. So.” 

Security, anonymity, et cetera. She knows. 

“As you, then,” she says. She finishes the last of her pie and sets the plate on the bedside table. 

“Next year,” says Peter. “I’ll put it on my calendar.” 

Michelle does not say, _it’s a date._ Instead, she says, “What, you think we won’t have gotten rid of racist Columbus nonsense by November 2018?” 

“Well…” 

“Yeah,” says Michelle. 

“We’re going to New Jersey tomorrow, to stay with Aunt Mays’s cousins for the weekend,” Peter says. “So I guess I’ll see you at school?” 

“No superheroing,” Michelle instructs. “We’ve just about moved past that DC appearance. New Jersey can get its own Spider-Man.”

“I’ll try. Promise,” says Peter. 

Fair enough. It’s the best she’s going to get, anyway, and he wouldn’t be Peter if he renounced New Jersey entirely. 

Spider-Man does not appear in New Jersey or anywhere else all weekend, so when Peter shows up at her locker on Monday morning, Michelle unearths a packet of stickers from her pocket and presses a gold star onto his sweater. (Susie went through a sticker phase a few years ago, and Michelle’s still discovering half-empty sticker sheets from kitchen drawers and beneath couch cushions.) 

Michelle doesn’t realize the act involves putting a hand on his chest until her hand is on his chest. Peter looks down at her hand, then at her face. 

Michelle drops her hand quickly. 

“Thanks,” says Peter. He ducks his head. “Did you, um, did you have a good weekend?” 

“There was a lot of pie involved,” says Michelle. 

“So… yes?” 

Michelle rolls her eyes. “Yes.” 

When she starts walking toward first period, Peter walks with her. This time, though, it’s Michelle who reaches out for Peter’s hand. 

 

After a week of handholding on the way to first period—which they don’t talk about, ever, mostly because they’re never alone—Michelle is unabashed about sitting close to Peter at movie night. Say what you will, Peter Parker is a quick study: he puts her his arm around her, and it’s all very comfortable and tingly and dumb and something that should keep happening in the future. 

“For the record,” says Ned, during a fight scene that’s officially gone on too long, “this is still weird. But I support you guys.” 

Michelle turns her head away from the TV screen and toward the boys. Peter’s face is very, very close. She kisses his cheek. 

“So weird,” says Ned. 

Peter glances between them. 

“Oh, look,” says Michelle. “Fight scene’s over.” 

Later, when they’re standing outside Michelle’s apartment building, she says, “Was that okay?” 

“Well, if that had been a real fight, somebody would have been hit in the back about three seconds in—” Peter starts. 

“Not that,” says Michelle. “You know.” 

She’d kiss him again, except the whole point of this conversation is to check that it was okay for her to kiss him the first place. 

_God, Peter, why can’t your superpower be mindreading_? she thinks, while also being very, very grateful that Peter’s superpower is not mindreading. 

“ _Oh_ ,” says Peter. “Um.”

He kisses her cheek. His lips are soft. 

“Okay?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” says Michelle. 

“I’ve been rooting for you two!” a voice calls out.

It’s May, leaning across the front passenger seat so she can speak through the rolled-down window. 

Michelle waves at her. 

“I guess I should go then,” says Peter. 

“Get out of here, nerd,” she says. 

But she kisses him, fast and light, before she steps away.

 

There’s some kind of meeting at the school on Monday night, so the library doesn’t close like usual. Michelle and Peter decide to stick around in the library after Decathlon practice, just the two of them. 

The team split into twos and threes during practice, taking up far more of the library tables than a small group had any right to. Michelle rotated between them all, and now her tea is tragically three tables away from where she’s sitting with Peter. 

“As my boyfriend, you should take pity on my tea-less state,” Michelle says. She’s joking—she uses a thermos, and the tea can wait two minutes until the desire scale tips away from “hold Peter’s hand” and toward “caffeine, please.”

“Am I?” Peter blurts. 

Michelle raises her eyebrows. 

“I mean, um… am I your boyfriend?” 

Oh. 

Michelle considers him: his combed hair, his hopeful eyebrows. “Are you going to be dumb about it?” 

“No.” Beat. “Okay, yeah.” 

One point for honesty, two points for self-awareness. 

“I don’t hold hands with people I’m not dating,” says Michelle.

“Cool,” says Peter. “I mean. Good?”

“Hold that thought,” Michelle says, and gets up to retrieve her tea. 

Her boyfriend waits patiently.

 

The first Saturday of winter break is supposed to be a daylong sci-fi marathon—except by 2 p.m. Joey has sent Ned at least seven frantic texts about the food he’s supposed to be cooking in preparation for his sister’s triumphant return from college. Or something. Michelle supports Ned’s pursuit of Joey, but she also supports petting Peter’s hair, which has been her focus for the last half-hour. 

“Should we go help him? He really doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Ned says. The situation is dire enough that he pauses the episode, with a full sixteen minutes left. 

“Do you know anything about cooking?” Peter asks. 

May is out—a colleague’s baby shower—so there’s not even an adult around to tap in.

“No, but, like, more than he does,” says Ned. “He needs help.”

“Peter and I are going to make out for a while, so you should go do that,” says Michelle.

Ned’s eyes go wide. He would probably be giving Peter a high-five if she weren’t sitting right here, like if she’d texted that from the other end of the hallway at school or something. Michelle wants Ned to hurry up and finishing getting over trying to be the douchebag stereotype of a teenage boy Ned saw on a TV show once, or, okay, five thousand times. He’s better than that (and he really is, most of the time). Still, dude needs to watch _Leverage_. If Ned needs a guy in the chair model, Alec Hardison is about as non-douche-baggy as you can get. Also, Aldis Hodge. Any questions? 

Peter’s eyes, of course, are also wide. Nerd.

“Well, see you, then,” Ned says. In under twenty seconds, he dons coat, hat, gloves, scarf, and leaves the apartment.

“Um,” says Peter, sitting up. “You were… just saying that, to get Ned to leave, right? To help him with Joey? Or… are we actually going to make out?” 

“Do you not want to make out with me?” 

“I do!” he blurts. Adorable. “But, you know, only if you want to. We don’t have to. We can just hang out, like… like we normally do.” 

“Peter, I think we need to have a talk,” Michelle says. 

“Oh, no,” says Peter. 

Michelle rolls her eyes. “Not that talk.” 

“Um, okay.” 

She sighs. She can’t believe he’s making her say it. Except, yeah, she can, he wouldn’t be the dumb boy she likes (god, she _likes_ him) if he weren’t making her say this. 

“You know you can ask for stuff, right? You get to want things, too,” she says. “That doesn’t mean I’ll say _yes—_ ” 

“Of course not,” Peter says. Just like she knew he would. 

“But you can ask. You can say, ‘hey, MJ, want to make out a bit during this dumb scene neither one of us likes anyway?’ Or ‘hey, MJ, I actually really want to do the thing where we maybe dress up a little and sit at some restaurant and make fun of the pretentious food descriptions.’” 

“Yeah?” says Peter. 

“Yeah,” she says. She takes a deep breath. She doesn’t look at him when she says it, but, whatever. She’s still saying it. “I don’t like it that you assume I’m just going to say no all the time.” That she doesn’t want the dumb stuff other teenagers want. And she doesn’t, a lot of the time. But sometimes… and anyway. It’s rude not to ask, when he so obviously wants to. 

“Oh,” says Peter. “Oh, no… I didn’t… I just—I _really like you_.” 

And he doesn’t want to push her away by asking for literally anything, because she’s… Michelle, and he’s a genuinely nice guy. 

“Well, newsflash, Peter Parker: I like you, too. Also, I have a dress gathering mothballs in my closet, so.” She takes his hand. They’ve been doing… this… for a few weeks now, and it’s still a very nice hand to hold. “I was going to give you another week before Iasked _you_ , but I thought I’d give you the chance. I have this pair of boots that goes _really well_ with it, but if you don’t want to—”

“I do,” he says. “MJ, do you maybe want to go out for dinner sometime? You can sketch the couples in crisis while we wait for our food.” 

She grins at him, and he grins back. “Yeah. You have to wear a shirt with a collar, though. I don’t care where we go—” this is kind of a lie, there are some places with hella shady management she’ll steer Peter away from, but that’s a later conversation “—as long as you wear a collared shirt.”

“Okay,” says Peter. “Why?” 

“Because I think you’d look good in one,” she says, partly because it’s true, partly because she knows he’ll blush.

Peter blushes. 

Like he doesn’t even _know_ how cute he is, with his soft brown hair and stupid superhero shoulders. Honestly.

“Okay,” he says. 

“Okay,” she says. “Do you want to kiss for a little bit?”

Up until this point, she and Peter haven’t really _kissed_. They’ve pecked. Peter will (very hesitantly, very cutely, very frustratingly) press his lips to hers when they’re at the door to her apartment, but that’s the extent of it. It’d be fine if he didn’t actually want to do more than that. But Michelle is pretty damn sure that he does. (And she definitely does.) 

“Yes?” His brow furrows together, the same way that it does when he’s thinking about a hard physics problem. “But um… you know I haven’t really done this before, right? So I might not be any good.”

“I haven’t done this before, either,” she says.

“You haven’t?” 

“I didn’t have friends before you and Ned and the Decathlon team. You think I had a boyfriend?” Or a girlfriend, or kissing partner of any other gender. Peter knows what she means. 

“I don’t know,” says Peter. “You’re, you know.” He ducks his head. “Really smart and pretty and everything. And… it seems like if you wanted to kiss someone, you would have just gone up to them and asked and done it, without needing the boyfriend part.” 

Michelle shrugs. “I don’t kiss people I don’t like. I don’t like that many people.” 

“I know,” says Peter, but he’s smiling, like he’s confident that he’s one of the people she does. Which is true. 

“So? Are we gonna kiss?” 

_Spider-Man doesn’t have moves_ , she thinks, maybe a little smugly. The thought is directed at all those thirst blogs. _God, he’s fifteen, go away_. Not that they’re allowed to know that.

Peter shifts toward her. He puts a hand on her waist, brings the other up to her neck. She closes the distance between them. 

Okay, maybe he does have moves. A little. A move, singular. (Plus the backflip.) 

It’s not like they kiss for that long, really. 

But Peter’s lips are soft, and she likes the way his hands rest against her skin. 

She likes the way he laughs when he’s nervous, which he is, when they take little breaks to breathe. 

She likes how when they stop, they go back to watching TV, but they’re curled that much closer into each other beneath the blanket. 

 

Winter break happens. 

Michelle finally sees the inside of Peter’s bedroom. 

Peter sees the inside of her bedroom, on a day when Susie’s out. 

She likes the way they can sit and not talk, her with a book, him with Legos or robot parts, courtesy of Tony Stark. She likes how steady he can be, when he decides to sit still. 

She likes how he lets her press him up against walls—okay, a wall, once, winter break isn’t _that_ long, but it was a good wall and a good kiss, and it’s an experiment she knows they’d both like to repeat, not for science, just for fun.

Winter break finishes and somehow there’s gym class, again.

It’s really terrible how time functions like that. 

_Groundhog Day_ , but in a high school gymnasium. 

Although, to be fair to _Groundhog Day_ , and gym class, she got her guy, and gym class mostly involves watching him subtly perform inhuman feats of strength, so it’s not the worst hour of her day. 

“You want to work on all your muscles, evenly,” their teacher advises Peter. Wisely, he ignores Michelle and Ned entirely. “Switch to arms today.” 

Peter pauses at sit-up one hundred and four. He looks at Michelle. 

“You heard the man,” she says. 

“Now I can’t look useful,” Ned whines, releasing his “hold” on Peter’s gym shoes. 

“That’s real rough,” says Michelle. She turns a page in her book. 

Peter stretches out into plank position—abs, but some arms. Nice. 

“What did we decide about Friday again?” Peter asks. 

“ _Star Trek_ ,” says Michelle. “And we’re going to casually be discussing May’s girlfriend when we pick up the take-out.” 

“I can’t believe you want to break his heart like that.” Ned shakes his head. 

“Dude needs to know,” says Michelle. “He’s all right. He’ll love again.” 

“But we won’t get free appetizers anymore,” Ned points out.

“Anyway,” says Peter, still in his plank. “Can we talk about the Spanish quiz?” 

They quiz each other until Flash wanders over. He stops next to Peter, looking down at him, hands on his hips.

“You’ve been at that for a while, man. Pretty cool,” Flash says. 

Eight minutes, fifteen seconds.

Michelle wouldn’t keep Flash’s superhero status secret, but she’s never going to let Flash be the one to out Peter. 

“Yeah,” says Michelle, before Peter can react. She stretches her legs out in front of her, leans back on one hand. “My boyfriend’s pretty badass. But he’s not as badass as me.” 

Amazingly, no one disagrees. 

Nerds. 


End file.
